Susie's Leaning Tower of Chocolate for 2009 February

When I need Maggie to be patient for just a minute I sometimes tell her to count to ten. That used to distract her for a minute or so, long enough for me to finish what I'm doing and give her my full attention. Now she just says, "1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10" and I get about 3 seconds to finish what I'm doing.

Also, she can apparently count to 12, though we're not sure where she learned it from.

This morning I had the opportunity to volunteer at the Draper Temple Open House. I was an usher near the baptistry which involved gesturing towards the stairs and really a lot of smiling and eye contact. It was actually kind of non-temple-y in a lot of ways. Because I was in the basement near the engineer's office and the laundry, I saw men carrying tool belts and cardboard boxes and sneaking into emergency exits and boiler rooms. Also, there were children, and people on cell phones and radios, and people dressed in casual clothing. One of the weirdest things was that no one was wearing white. I noticed it as soon as I walked in. I expected to see a lot of nice ladies dressed in white to tell me where to go. But that was my job as an usher (in church clothes), so no one was there to do it until I got there.

I was standing next to a painting of the Savior with Mary and Martha, and one of the sun setting in Jerusalem, both of which were very beautiful and inspiring to ponder while I waited in between groups. I enjoyed being able to serve and share my testimony (with a smile and hand gesture). As soon as I got home, I marched over to our neighbors and invited them to take the tour.

I'm looking forward to going on the tour with John and Maggie in a couple weeks. I may take Maggie during the day sometime. I think she might enjoy seeing the temple. Also, the cookies are good.

step stool
potty seat
lavender twin sheets (like $10 ones from Target)
Cars DVD
Wooden ABC puzzle (like the ones with pegs on the letters and no annoying sounds)
dress 2T
pajamas 2T
nylon tights
Gerber puffs
$ for college fund
twin bed

Last night I dreamed I was at a trade show and looking at a purse booth I found a purse I just loved and tried to schmooze them into giving it to me. My conscious self would never have picked out that purse but the more I think about it, I really like it. It was much too small for my current purposes. I could fit my essentials into it, but no snacks or toys for Maggie. It held it's shape, was made out of pink leather - the dark pink that purses are. It had some weird eyelet holes, and a little design on the corner, a flower or something, not some tacky logo. They told me I could have it if I spent $96 on some other ugly purse. No thanks.

It was a bit like this Coach purse in shape, only not so sickly a pink.

Among the things I don't feel like doing while recovering from the world's longest cold: changing crib sheets, giving baths, listening to whining, cleaning up troubled assets and convincing that Piglet will return from the depths of the washing machine. Don't mind: extra snuggling.

An article I wrote for Valentine's Day last year, Chocolate-Free Desserts, is featured on the main page of Associate Content. Woo hoo!

I was already feeling a little boring when I clicked on my blog's random entry generator just now, and was shown an entry involving Latin dancing, trips to London and pleather pants. Sigh. None of those things are currently forecasted, especially not the pleather pants.

In real life, Jodi, Franco, Maggie and I went to visit Grandma June today, then we met up with more family at IHOP. I got to sit next to Logan, who made me laugh, and Maggie got to sit next to Franco, who made her laugh. I did some cleaning and a couple hours of work for Jamie, and we went for a walk to get the nonmail. And I just had a delicious rootbeer float.

Oh yeah, for Valentine's Day John bought me and Maggie some delicious, fancy cookies. We made him Valentines and bought him a power cord for the elliptical (so romantic). Jodi watched Maggie in the morning so John and I could go to the temple together. I made shrimp scampi for lunch (for John (and Jodi)) and picked up a stuffed crust Hawaiian pizza (for me) for dinner.

John planned a surprise for us today, which I finally guessed as bowling. I am terrible at bowling, but it was so much fun. The funniest part was that Maggie was so sad that the balls disappeared! "ball! ball! wah!" Even watching them come back out of the machine didn't make her happy. Finally I said, "Look, Maggie, I'm going to put the ball down the slide" (the lane) and she seemed to accept that.

After bowling we went bed-shopping for Maggie. If anyone is looking into buying a bed, you should know that it is MUCH cheaper just to buy a headboard. That's what we ended up doing. $99 headboard vs $500 bed: no question.

We also bought purple sheets, a spring dress and some PJs for Maggie's birthday. For some reason we don't get a lot of PJ handmedowns, because it seems like that is the thing I buy most for her.

Later we went to the park to play and made smoothies for dinner. Because it was such a nice Indian Spring day. We even went in the backyard for the first time in ages. John weeded!

We got two new sets of neighbors this week. John and I were just enjoying our third day of having no For Sale signs on our side of the street when a new one went up today. There are currently 5 houses on our street for sale or rent - out of 20 total houses! That makes 9 total since we bought our house, once of which has changed hands twice.

I did some sewing today. I mended some of John's clothes, and made some felt food items for Someone's upcoming birthday. I have one more to make, and I will post pictures tomorrow. Maggie has taken to standing behind me while I sew and saying "uh-oh!" every time I stop the machine.

After dealing with Mom's (50) scrapbooks, I've decided that I'm just going to make one scrapbook and my kids can fight over the pages. We have all the pictures digitally, so hopefully it won't be a big deal. Since Maggie technically doesn't have a baby book, here is the list I've kept of all her baby firsts and accomplishments

First smile: 5 weeks
Spontaneous smile: 5/13/07
Makes Razz sound: 5/17/07
Rolls over - back to front: 6/17/07
Sits alone (no hands even! at the beach): 7/12/07
Solid food: 8/20/07
Rolls onto back: 8/27/07
Stands holding onto crib: 8/31/07
Crawling: 10/16/07
Pulls up in crib: 10/16/07
Says "Dada": 7.5 months
Climbs stairs: 8 months
Waves bye-bye: 8 months
Stands alone: 1/19/08
Claps hands: 2/14/08
Walk between furniture and parent: 2/14/08
Climb down stairs: 4/7/08
First tooth: 4/6/08
Walks well: 13 months
First word ("Bubbles", after a couple weeks in nursery): 18 months
2 word phrases: 22 months